)
Miss Nightingale talks to me of "the feelings usually called
love," but then she is a heroine, perhaps a goddess.
This love-making is a very serious business, though society makes
fun of it, perhaps to test the truth and earnestness of the
lovers.
Dear, I am an old man, what the poet calls "on the threshold of
old age" (Homer), and I am not very romantic or sentimental about
such things, but I would do anything I could to save any one who
cares for me from making a mistake.
I think that you are quite right in not running the risk without a
modest abode in the country.
The real doubt about the affair is the family; will you consider
this and talk it over with your mother? The other day you were at
a masqued ball, as you told me--a few months hence you will have,
or rather may be having, the care of five children, with all the
ailments and miseries and disagreeables of children (unlike the
children of some of your friends) and not your own, although you
will have to be a mother to them, and this state of things will
last during the greatest part of your life. Is not the contrast
more than human nature can endure? I know that it is, as you said,
a nobler manner of living, but are you equal to such a struggle.
If you are, I can only say, "God bless you, you are a brave girl."
But I would not have you disguise from yourself the nature of the
trial. It is not possible to be a leader of fashion and to do your
duty to the five children.
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